Today, it takes nearly a year for an unmanned spacecraft to reach Mars. Upon an explosive detonation, a shock wave originates and compresses the air, causing an abrupt increase in pressure. Answer (1 of 6): Let's assume a gram of antihydrogen, which would release about 2 GeV per annihilation. If you have an absurdly large fireball it will tend to spread more upwards (less pressure, longer mean-free path) and send a big plasma cloud up - bad from an electromagnetic pulse, ozone layer and IR energy igniting stuff perspective. $361,000,000 km^2$ to cover, you'd need another 3,009 MIEVs. Current technology only allows us to store small amounts of antimatter in each Penning trap. Note It is convention to use ton compared to short ton, net ton American or tonne (1000 kilogrammes.) In all honesty you can probably get away with less because the force of the explosion will likely kill many humans. The recipethey use at CERN's Antimatter Factory to achieve this feat is: One in every million collisions creates a proton-antiproton pair. Some of the radiation will doubtless cause fission or transmutation - a nucleus hit by an anti-proton is likely to at least lose a nucleon, and the mesons also happily react with nuclei. Though one of the answer does say that we would need 1.3 trillion tonnes of antimatter to blow up the Earth. Source: Ian Goddard and Cockell, Charles S. Impossible Extinction. This one bullet would be equivalent to 378 grams of TNT, which is more powerful than a modern grenade. The reaction of 1 kg of antimatter with 1 kg of matter would produce 1.8 10 17 J (180 petajoules) of energy (by the mass-energy equivalence formula, E=mc 2), or the rough equivalent of 43 megatons of TNT - slightly less than the yield of the 27,000 kg Tsar Bomba, the largest thermonuclear weapon ever detonated. Such a wave can be catastrophic depending upon its intensity. The results of this latest experiment show that a property of the antiproton (called its magnetic moment) is identical in magnitude to the magnetic moment of its proton counterpart to within a precision of just a couple of parts per billion. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. When the antimatter starts reacting antiprotons and positrons will be kicked away, mixing with the air. Supposing we had many thousands of antimatter bombs (they can be detonated in many different locations), how much total antimatter would we need in order to wipe out all humans on Earth? The pressure decays exponentially over time and has positive and negative (suction) phases. The team is called the ALPHA collaboration. 2 kg of $E=mc^2 = 1.79 \times 10^{17} J$. For an explosion of TNT equivalent mass, WWW and scaled distance, ZZZ. The team hasn't found any other meaningful differences between matter and antimatter. With about 100,000 ships out there, that's a lot of survivors. An explosive, upon detonation, releases a large amount of energy. Catch up with The Loop, Jock Zonfrillo remembered as an 'incredible chef' and influential member of Australia's culinary landscape, 'Until we meet in heaven': Maryborough community comes to grips with triple fatality as loved ones remembered, Perfect storm brewing for housing market and it could make buying your own home a pipedream, Reserve Bank tipped to leave interest rates on hold for a second month, ASX to open lower, Clare desperately wanted to stop drinking but she couldn't make it stick. Comparing with nuclear weapons, this is about 50 kton TNT. TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. Get all the latest science stories from across the ABC. . [3], The kiloton and megaton of TNT equivalent have traditionally been used to describe the energy output, and hence the destructive power, of a nuclear weapon. Assuming perfect accuracy and a teleporter? What Is Antimatter? The total energy output of the Sun per second. Interaction with the blast wave can cause severe injuries (see injury severity score calculator) depending on the stand-off distance. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. When antimatter collides with matter it can end up creating the largest explosion in human history. It's exactly the same as matter, except all the electrical charges of its component parts are reversed. This enables engineers to determine the proper masses of different explosives when applying blasting formulas developed specifically for TNT. A kiloton of TNT can be visualized as a cube of TNT 8.46 metres (27.8ft) on a side. How are engines numbered on Starship and Super Heavy? For more information, please see our The blast radius for the 1 kg bare explosive detonation is 130 m. This answer is obtained by using the range safety equation, based on Hopkinson-Cranz Law: The intensity of the blast wave front is inversely proportional to the cube of the distance. [1], The paramount advantage of such a theoretical weapon is that antimatter and matter collisions result in the entire sum of their mass energy equivalent being released as energy, which is at least two orders of magnitude greater than the energy release of the most efficient fusion weapons (100% vs 0.4-1%). You can also compare energy generated from different reactions with respect to the mass of TNT using our energy conversion calculator. Hence why I'm thinking they may have tried to say "Nope, 3,000m of Antimatter would really only be an explosion this big" as opposed to "Something as big as your hand would utterly level half of Rome" which is significantly smaller than 3,000m. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. The term "TNT equivalence" is a normalization technique for equating properties of an explosive to TNT, the standard. It's also likely the most explosive substance on the planet. In other words, for each gram of TNT exploded, 4.184kilojoules (or 4,184 joules) of energy are released. Likewise, the antimatter counterpart to a proton is the anti-proton which has the same mass as a proton but with a negative charge. CAUTION The Big Bang is, and always has been, unsupported speculation. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. 2 * (mass of earth) * c^2 And the answer is $1.0735089\times10^{42}$ J (joules) Wolfram Alpha gave the following helpful equivalency: $( \frac{1}{93} )\times$ energy released from a supernova $(\approx 1\times 10 . The blast radius becomes a critical parameter in such scenarios. I have no idea what you're talking about. In fact you would need 2.5 trillion tons of antimatter. For a period of time after the Big Bang there was only energy. They did it by creating a magnetic bottle called a Minimum Magnetic Field Trap. Would one atom of antimatter be lethal if annihilated inside the brain? A blast wave unleashes a large amount of energy that causes changes in pressure and temperature along its path. Wonder What's Next? $10^{32}J$ is simply the gravitational binding energy of the planet. Professor Doser and his colleagues need anti-protons. Small TNT explosions, especially in the open, don't tend to burn the carbon-particle and hydrocarbon products of the explosion. 2014 The Institute of Makers of Explosives. Take a proton (a charged subatomic particle) 2. Could a subterranean river or aquifer generate enough continuous momentum to power a waterwheel for the purpose of producing electricity? Converts antimatter to energy in joules. [4], Alternative values for TNT equivalency can be calculated according to which property is being compared and when in the two detonation processes the values are measured. "One particle is left over out of a billion, and this one particle out of a billion is everything we see in the Universe. Was Aristarchus the first to propose heliocentrism? Photons are bundles of electromagnetic energy. If the null hypothesis is never really true, is there a point to using a statistical test without a priori power analysis? On the subatomic level, this energy is manageable, but if one were to combine a gram of antimatter with a gram of matter, the result is an energy release comparable to the atomic explosion at . Estimated mass-energy of the observable universe. - Georg Patscheider Nov 30, 2018 at 14:03 There's no way $10^{32} / 10^{17} = 10^{27}$, much less $10^{32} \times 10^{17} = 10^{27}$, no matter where you place any 1.72 multiplicative factor. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. Using the convention that 1 kiloton TNT equivalent = 4.18410 12 joules (or one trillion calories of energy), one half gram of antimatter reacting with one half gram of ordinary matter (one gram total) results in 21.5 kilotons-equivalent of energy (the same as the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945). And yes, bizarrely, energy can become the mass of matter and vice versa. None. To create antimatter you just need to create matter. Unravelling this cosmic conundrum is what the researchers at CERN's Antimatter Factory are trying to do. Big Bang scientists have been hoping to find some physics loopholesome tiny difference between matter and antimatterthat would allow more matter than antimatter to be produced shortly after the Big Bang, but so far they have been unsuccessful. Given that 1 ton is equal to 2240 pounds or 1016.046909 kg we should be able to scale up the explosive yield simply. Those made at CERN amount to about 1 nanogram. There are two surefire ways. Counting and finding real solutions of an equation. (Some say that this was adapted into the show based on people who knew Miguel Alcubierre and they put his unpunished theories into the show, but I don't think this was ever confirmed), But there are volumes of Star Trek Tech manuals that base other things "kind of" around science, or at least attempt to, like the Heisenberg Compensation in the Transporters. ", National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, "How much energy does an earthquake release? I mean like a lot of people I've looked at the "NukeMap" website and gone "Wow, the Tsar Bomb really is pretty destructive", what would the Enterprise-D crashing into a city look like by comparison. The approximate radiant heat energy released during 3-phase, 600V, 100kA, Conventional bombs yield from less than one ton to, A real 0.454-kiloton-of-TNT (1.90TJ) charge at. But, taking the statement as accurate (and the source appears to be of generally high quality to me). "In the case of a chemical reaction, you're transforming only about a millionth of the mass of the object of the molecule into energy,"Professor Doser says. First, let's talk about blast waves. Using PETN, engineers would need 1.0/1.66 (or 0.60) kg to obtain the same effects as 1kg of TNT. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. The reality is that. This wave leads to an abrupt increase in pressure. The storage rings on the spacecraft will hold the antimatter. @Serban Tanasa: No, it's clearly not the same question. And yet, a piece of fruit makes antimatter too. Similarly, you can estimate the blast radius for c4 explosives too. "The best explanation that we have found up to now is to say that there's a slight difference in the properties of particles and antiparticles,"Professor Doser says. in high school, I've been fascinated by the idea that Antimatter is pretty explosive. rev2023.5.1.43405. Would it level the building? Find out more about shock waves in our oblique shock calculator and Prandtl Meyer expansion calculator. 1212 New York Ave., NW, Suite 650 Washington, DC 20005 | Phone: 202-429-9280 | Email: info@ime.org. If the Big Bang led to equal parts matter and antimatter forming, these probably would have then bumped into each other, obliterated one another, and then presumably exploded again. This makes it incredibly hard to store antimatter. Also your question only speaks about blowing up a planet completely, whereas my questions number 1 and 2 only speak about killing all humans and all animals respectively which is very different (your question very clearly states near the end "I dont just want to destroy all life on the surface, I want to reduce the entire planet to rubble so that very little remains"). This is one of the more common types of "TNT equivalence" and is the one used on USGS form 9-4040A. Learn how and when to remove this template message, Antimatter-catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion, "Air Force pursuing antimatter weapons / Program was touted publicly, then came official gag order", "Laser technique produces bevy of antimatter", "Details on antimatter triggered fusion bombs - NextBigFuture.com", "Angels & Demons: The Physics Behind The Movie (and The Book)", "Air Force pursuing antimatter weapons: Program was touted publicly, then came official gag order", Page discussing the possibility of using antimatter as a trigger for a thermonuclear explosion, Paper discussing the number of antiprotons required to ignite a thermonuclear weapon, Safety of high-energy particle collision experiments, Existential risk from artificial intelligence, Self-Indication Assumption Doomsday argument rebuttal, Self-referencing doomsday argument rebuttal, List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events, List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antimatter_weapon&oldid=1139434888, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from August 2020, All articles needing additional references, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2004, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 15 February 2023, at 03:22.